01 Amazon Adventure

Amazon Adventure

By Willard Price

Hal sat on the head of a stuffed crocodile in the lobby of the Quito Hotel and cleaned his gun. He listened to the hotel proprietor, Don Pedro.

‘Yes, you’re going to see the greatest river on earth … the greatest unexplored jungle on earth … greatest storehouse of natural resources on earth. Some day the Amazon will feed the world.’

‘But are there really crocs down there as big as this one?’ asked Hal, who was more interested in hunting than in feeding the world.

‘Bigger. You’ve come to the right place if you want to get animals for the zoos. Why, I’ve heard say there are more varieties of wild animals in the Amazon country than in the rest of the world put together. But you’d know better about that.’ He turned to Hal’s father.

People had a habit of turning to John Hunt when they wanted to learn about animals. He had studied and collected animals for twenty years. When Mollie the lion died at the Bronx Zoo, the curator phoned John Hunt to pick up another the next time he went to Africa. When the boa constrictor in the Ringling Circus made a slight tactical error and swallowed a valuable monkey, a message was sent to the private Hunt zoo on Long Island; if there was no such monkey in stock, would Hunt kindly get one on his next visit to Borneo? When that rare antelope called the bongo — so rare that it is worth nearly a £1000 — went down with the colic in the London Zoo, this radiogram reached John Hunt:

BONGO COLIC WHAT TREATMENT

He was supposed to know.

This was his fifth trip to South America, but it was the first for his two sons, Hal and Roger. And yet they were not quite new to the animal game. Hal had hunted mountain lions in Colorado and Mexico, and both he and his younger brother had tended the collections in their father’s Long Island supply zoo where animals brought back from exploration trips were kept until they were bought by zoos, circuses or museums.

‘Nobody knows,’ said John Hunt cautiously, ‘how many animals there are in the Amazon valley because so much of the country has not yet been explored. We’re going to explore a new part of it on this trip, if all goes well. The Pastaza River.’

‘The Pastaza!’ exclaimed Don Pedro. That’s known only as far as Andoas. Below that no visitor has ever gone in and come out alive. Two tried last year. They were never heard of again. Why, the Indians down there are headhunters. Look up yonder. That’s what they’ll do to you.’

He pointed to a strange object on the mantelpiece. It was a human head, but shrunken to the size of an orange.

Roger went over to get a close look at it. He hardly dared touch it.

‘It must have been a baby’s head.’

‘No, it was a man,’ said his father, ‘but the Jivaro Indians have a way of reducing them. You’ll see when we get down there.’

Roger looked doubtful. ‘But how about us?’

‘I think we’ll be in no danger. They do that to the heads of enemies, or the heads of relatives — and we’re neither one.’

The hotelman shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw the cathedral,’ he said.

‘What wouldn’t the museums give to have specimens like that!’ Hal exclaimed. ‘How about this one— would you sell it?’

The proprietor looked about nervously. Hal’s father hastened to curb his son’s enthusiasm.

‘The police here would clap you in jail for making an offer like that,’ he said. ‘There’s a law now against buying or selling heads. You can get imitations made out of goatskin or horsehide. But for the real article, you’ll have to wait till we visit the Jivaros.’

Roger was still uncomfortable. ‘What do we want to go there for anyhow?’ he asked. ‘I thought we were going down the Amazon.’ The Pastaza River is one of the headwaters of the Amazon. The Amazon doesn’t start out by being the Amazon, you know. It begins with a lot of little rivers flowing down from the snows of the Andes. The Pastaza is one of them. And a very interesting one because much of its course hasn’t been charted.’

‘And because it goes through headhunter country,’ added Hal, amused to see his brother squirm. ‘We wouldn’t want to miss that!’

Roger said nothing. He sauntered around behind Hal, quietly took hold of the crocodile’s tail and, with a sudden jerk, landed his brother on the floor.

‘Wait till I get you down in the Jivaro country,’ he said. ‘I’ll help them do your head. Let’s see, I think I’ll have it fried and pickled. Only trouble is, no museum would want the ugly thing.’

He got no further for Hal had grabbed him and was making a determined effort to insert him between the crocodile’s jaws.

The hotel proprietor prudently removed the furniture from the vicinity of the struggling boys. He eyed their noisy antics with disapproval.

But John Hunt looked with some pride at his two sons. No man could want better pals on a jungle journey. Hal, finished with school and about to go to college, was as tall and strong as his father.

Roger did not run to length, but he was alert and wiry, and brave enough, though he had admitted a natural uneasiness about associating with headhunters. Four years younger than his brother, he had jumped at the chance to spend his school holidays on an animal hunt. Their father had promised that if the boys made good on this adventure, their reward should be a trip to the South Seas.

A clerk handed John Hunt a cablegram. Hunt tore open the envelope and unfolded the message. The boys loosened their stranglehold upon each other and watched their father.

John Hunt read the cable. Then he read it again. As if not believing what he saw, he went over it a third time. The explorer’s bronzed face did not grow pale, but there was a tenseness about the mouth and the fingers tightened on the paper. The boys impatiently waited.

‘Well, dad, tell us about it. What have you got there?’

Hunt laughed. ‘Somebody’s trying to kid us,’ he said, and passed the cablegram to his sons. They read:

JOHN HUNT QUITO HOTEL QUITO ECUADOR THE AMAZON IS A BAD PLACE BETTER KEEP OUT OF IT IF YOU WANT TO STAY HEALTHY AFFAIRS AT HOME WILL REQUIRE YOUR ATTENTION

The cable was from New York. There was no signature.

‘Who could have sent it?’ wondered Hal.

‘Perhaps one of the fellows up at the Explorers’ Club trying to have a little fun with us,’ said Hunt, but his sons could see that he was not entirely satisfied with this explanation.

‘Do you think there’s any trouble at home?’ Hal ventured.

‘Of course not. If there were your mother would cable us.’

Hal’s forehead kinked the way it always did when he was puzzled.

‘Looks to me as if we had a real mystery here,’ he said. ‘Now who could have a grudge against us? Who could want to stop us from going down the Amazon?’

‘I don’t know,’ his father said. ‘But I don’t think we should pay too much attention to an anonymous message. If the fellow who sent this doesn’t have the nerve to sign his name, perhaps he doesn’t have the nerve to hurt us.’

‘Couldn’t we trace it back? Doesn’t anybody who sends a cable have to give his name and address at the cable office?’

Yes, but if he didn’t want his identity known, he wouldn’t give his real name and address.’

Roger wasn’t saying anything, but his eyes were growing larger every minute under the thrill of this strange situation. His father noticed the boy’s excitement and said, ‘It’s probably the work of some harmless crank. Suppose we just forget about it. We have to get up pretty early tomorrow morning so let’s turn in. We get off at dawn — if that crazy flying Irishman has his plane ready.’

‘Perhaps I’d better drop around and see him right now,’ suggested Hal.

‘Good idea. I’ll go too,’ put in Roger.

‘No,’ said his father, ‘you’d better get your beauty sleep.’

Hal went out into the Plaza Independencia. A band concert was going on. The music echoed back from the great front of the cathedral and the archbishop’s palace. The plaza was full of people, well-dressed citizens of Spanish blood, and Indians in flat hats and blanketlike ponchos.

What a city of beauty and mystery, thought Hal. It lay in a great bowl made by mountains, their snow-capped peaks gleaming in the moonlight. No wonder the people of Quito loved it. ‘From Quito to Heaven’ they have always said.

As he slowed down, panting because of the 9500-foot altitude, he reflected that this capital city of Ecuador was certainly next door to heaven. It was one of the highest capital cities in the world. But the air was not bitterly cold, for just outside of the city ran the equator. Still, it was chilly enough to make it hard to imagine that the equator was so near, and Hal buttoned his coat as he strolled out of the brightly lit plaza into the dark, narrow streets of the old city.

It was necessary to walk with care over the rough cobblestones. The ancient adobe brick houses with their roofs of red tile covered with patches of green moss nearly closed overhead. It was like going through a tunnel.

Muffled shadows slid past in barefoot silence.

But Hal was conscious that one pair of feet somewhere behind him wore shoes. He thought nothing of it until, after he had turned right from Venezuela on to Sucre, he could still hear the shoes. He turned left on Pichincha. The shoes followed. Just for the fun of it, Hal went around the block. So did the owner of the shoes, always drawing closer. This was no longer very amusing. Hal quickened his pace.

He trod as lightly as possible, got well ahead, and then stepped into the intense shadow of the doorway of Terry O’Neill’s house. He drew his flashlight from his pocket and waited.

Along came the persistent stranger. His footsteps were a bit uncertain now. He paused at one doorway after another and came at last to Hal’s retreat.

Hal turned on the flashlight and threw the beam straight into the face of the man with shoes.

He was no Ecuadorean. He was too big and burly. Latin men are somewhat small and delicate, and the Indians are small and indelicate. This fellow could have passed as a prizefighter or a

gangster. His face, twisted up by the sharp light, was inexpressibly cruel and sinister. His eyes gleamed like a surprised tiger’s. No headhunter in the jungle could have looked more savage.

Hal could hardly refrain from beating on the door of his friend’s house. He conquered this desire and said, ‘You were following me.’

The man blinked. ‘Hey? You’re crazy. I was just taking a walk.’

‘Funny you had to take the same walk that I did.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I spotted you by your shoes.’

‘Shoes? Are you barmy? Lots of people in Quito wear shoes.’

‘Yes, but yours have a little tune of their own, and they went everywhere I did, even around the block.’ The stranger moved in threateningly, but Hal was a step above him and in a position to make things tough for him. A disturbance would bring out the whole neighbourhood.

The man’s face broke into a sheepish grin.

‘You’re right, pal. I was following you. But I didn’t mean nothing by it. I saw you were a Yank, and could speak my lingo, and I — well, I just wanted to ask the way to the Santo Domingo church. This being Sunday, I just thought I’d like to make a prayer and burn a few candles.’ And he raised his bloodshot eyes towards heaven.

‘Straight down this street to the corner of Flores,’ said Hal.

‘Thanks so much,’ said the stranger civilly enough, but as he turned out of the light there was a last flash of hate in his eyes that made Hal’s spine creep. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’

‘Don’t make it too soon,’ was Hal’s heartfelt reply and he turned to knock at Terry’s door.

In the warm, comforting glow of Terry O’Neill’s living room Hal related what had just happened in the street, and also the incident of the cablegram.

Terry was not the sort to take anything very seriously. He was a devil-may-care young aviator with a love for adventure that made him congratulate Hal on his success in finding some excitement.

‘Looks as if you are going to have anything but a dull time,’ he said. ‘Do you suppose there is any connection between these two things? Have you an enemy in New York who might have sent an agent here to do you down?’

‘We’re rather short on enemies,’ said Hal. ‘Of course we have competitors. One very big competitor. He stopped suddenly and his forehead wrinkled. ‘I wonder — ‘ he said. ‘Terry, perhaps you’ve given me an idea.’

‘Good. Do you still want to fly tomorrow morning?’

‘Of course. How about the plane? Did you get those brakes fixed?’

‘Well, not exactly,’ said Terry in his easy, Irish way. ‘But they’ll probably do all right.’

Lady Luck must play a pretty large part in Terry’s affairs, Hal thought. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll be out in the field at dawn,’ and he rose to go.

‘Do you want a bodyguard to escort you back to the hotel?’

‘I’ll make it,’ laughed Hal. But he did not go back as he had come. He took a roundabout route and walked in the middle of the street, eyes and ears alert. He got back to the hotel without incident and found his father and Roger asleep. He turned in, though he felt sure that he would lie awake all night, thinking. But it had been an active day. It takes plenty of rest to keep going in the thin air of sky-high Quito. In five minutes Hal, too, was asleep.